Lawyers Use Juror's Twitter Messages As Basis For Appeal
from the reaching dept
Lawyers for an Arkansas building materials firm have appealed a $12.6 million judgment against the company, alleging that a juror's Twitter messages show that he was biased against the company. The lawyers say tweets like "I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else's money" and "oh and nobody buy Stoam. Its bad mojo and they'll probably cease to Exist, now that their wallet is 12m lighter" illustrate that the juror was predisposed towards a verdict that would "impress his audience". Meanwhile, in a corruption case in Philadelphia, a defandant's attorneys allege a juror's tweets and status updates broke rules about disclosing deliberations, and say they could warrant a mistrial. Lawyers, along with everybody else, are paying more and more attention to social-media updates, so it's likely we've not heard the last of the silly Twitter-based legal maneuver. But it's not just the information-spreading that's got lawyers and judges worried, it's also juries looking up info on their phones during trials. In a recent federal drug trial in Florida, a judge declared a mistrial after learning that 8 jurors had accessed online information on their mobile phones during a trial. A cornerstone of the US' adversarial legal system is that juries can only consider the evidence that's presented to them, and jurors looking info up on their own breaks the longstanding rules of evidence of the system. It's not as if the legal system is under threat from technology, but certainly expect to see plenty more stories along these lines in the near future.
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Trial Practice
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I was part of the jury pool for a local murder trial a few years ago, and one of the first to be struck. The defense attorney asked me if I'd seen any news coverage of the case. Considering it was the most high-profile murder trial in the local area in decades it was a pretty stupid question. Pretty much as soon as I said the word 'internet' the attorney had me stricken from the jury pool. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. The jury was sequestered for about eight weeks during the trial.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
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Re: Solution
> hand over all electronic devices during
> the trial. It's not like they're going to
> need to make a phone call while the trial
> is going on.
Not really a solution at all. The vast majority of juries are not sequestered, which means they go home at the end of the day and come back in the morning for trials that can last weeks. No way people are going to hand over their phones for weeks to the court and not have any way to communicate with other people on their off time. People would just leave their phones at home and have nothing to hand over when the judge demands it.
Besides, it's not like giving over your phone won't keep you from using your home computer to look stuff up on the internet when you're not in court.
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Re:
That does not solve the problem of jurors using such items during a recess.
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In my humble opinion
Besides who gave the government the right to make laws? The people
Who is supposed to be served by the laws? The people
Who should have the right to change laws? The people
Who will jurors gain additional information from, if anybody? The people.
Government, laws, and punishments are supposed to act as an expression of the will of the people. Therefore if 90% of people think that the defendant is not guilty, or the crime that was supposedly comitted shouldn't be a crime, then the defendant should go free (and vise versa).
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Yes, this is true and it sucks. In some countries, juries can ask questions and actively ask for evidence, etc. So if they want additional tests done or if they want to know more info in a certain area, they just have to ask. That seems so much more just to me... What are American courts trying to hide?
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Damn the man!
Lawyers are corrupt, it is true. Life is unfair. If we didn't have certain protections in place (which, at the same time that they protect, they allow this corruption) then the system would be as deadly as any third-world legal system. This is not to say it can't be changed, but some people tend to take a very defeatist attitude. "This is bad, so we should scrap the whole thing." "This is wrong, and so the whole system doesn't work." Sure, it can and probably should be changed. If you think of a way, call your congressman and lets get to work on getting it implemented. But throwing up your hands and saying, "Screw this, I'm taking my ball and going home," doesn't help anything.
As to what American courts are trying to hide: Public opinion, which is not supposed to have any place in the court. Juries 'can' ask for evidence, during deliberations. Did you think they just lock them in a room and throw away the key, expecting them to use their memories to recall all hundred or so hours of the case? No! That is why they make detailed recordings of everything, and carefully label things, so the jury can bring things into the room. Juries don't ask questions of witnesses because that is the prosecutor and defender's job. And, if a juror asks a stupid question, they won't feel slighted when they get a stupid answer (as does happen with prosecutors and defenders). Jurors are supposed to be calm, outside observers, seeing what is going on and making a determination upon it. If the defense doesn't give a good case, or the prosecution doesn't, that is for the judge to decide (by declaring a mistrial, by striking evidence, by giving instruction to the jury and by assigning a new attorney if the current ones prove incompetent).
As to whether or not it is more just, just is not a seeming, or a feeling. Justice is truth, pure and simple. And now I will get off my soapbox and go play.
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Twitering as a threat
Problem - I hate civil and criminal law (good at both, just don't like them).
Oh, well, another opportunity lost.
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